A Scarlet Mind
by raindropsonroaches
Summary: Steve can't take it, there are too many voices, too many clues, and definitely one too many Blues.


**AN: So this is probably the best/worst thing I've ever written. I love it.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Blue's Clues.**

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

There were voices in his head, _children's _voices, _all the time_, they never _stopped_. They made his life a cartoon, _a cartoon_, and he couldn't _stand_ it, couldn't _take it anymore. _Everything talked, the salt, the pepper, the mailbox, even the _dogs_, Magenta and- and Blue. _Blue. _He hated the name, the pet, the dog, the thing, the _monster_. Paw prints- blue ones, of _course_, _OF COURSE_- everywhere: in the sky, the dishwasher, on trees, his shirts, in his hair, _all over the place. _

"Clues," Blue had whispered, "Clues, Steve, they're _clues!"_ Blue's Clues, yes, no, why not? Clues to _what?_ There was no mystery, no riddle, no _question _to be _solved_, _no need, no PURPOSE for clues! _Steve paced the house, his hands fisted deep in his hair.

"Hello, Steve! Did you find the clue?" Paprika inquired as he walked through the kitchen. The paprika was talking now, great, _what was going on?_ Soon the walls would be screaming and Steve would be crying and begging for it all just to _stop_, to_ end. _What had he done to _deserve this?_ Was it the _house?_ Was the house just haunted? He knew he wasn't on drugs, and he'd given up alcohol a long time ago. _What could it be?_

"The _clue,_ Steve, _the clue_!" Paprika squealed, "The clue, the clue, the clue, the clue, the _clue!"_

"_Leave me alone!" _Steve screamed, picking up one of the kitchen chairs and smashing it on the table. Even after the small paprika shaker had splinted into shards and the chair had been torn apart and the table damaged, Steve continued to hear the whispered,

"The clue, _find the clue!"_

Something nudged his leg and he looked down to see Magenta, eyes filled with tears that he knew weren't possible, but the dog wore _glasses_ in this hell of his, so really, what did it matter?

"You_ killed _her, Steve. Why did you do it? She was so young, just a child. Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper will be devastated… She was my _friend_ Steve. Why'd you do it?" The impossible tears began to stream down the dog's face, and Steve muttered,

"The clue, the clue_, because the clue,_ Magenta, clue, clue, the _clue!"_

"You didn't have to do it, Steve. I could have helped you find the clue. You could have asked poor Paprika. She always loved to help. Blue always told her where the clue was. Blue's Clues, she could have helped." Steve was going crazy, he _must have been_. Either way, he couldn't stand to listen to this dog for one more moment. Laughing without humor and a little hysterical, he pulled a broken leg from the kitchen chair he had used to beat Paprika, and drove the sharp end into Magenta's spine. The dog shrieked, and her cartoon appearance faded away, leaving Steve to gaze into the betrayed eyes of the dog that had loved him for so long. He walked from the kitchen, leaving the dog to bleed amid the pile of shattered glass that had contained young Paprika. He walked to his seat, his chair, his big red chair, and picked up his notebook. It was shaped as a paw today- _of course._ He picked up what he thought was a pen and began to scribble on the yellow notebook pages, stopping when he realized the pen in his hand had become a green crayon. He wanted to cry, _this wasn't right_, but he wrote anyways, knowing that whatever he wrote with would look the same. The crayon wrote in stripes- in _stripes,_ always stripes, he _couldn't escape_ them. Green stripes (Green! Always, _always_ green!), never of any other color. His shirt was green striped every day, no matter if he reached for the red upon waking. Why was this _happening,_ when would it _end?_ He recorded the time and date Paprika and Magenta had died, as he did every time he shattered an object that his mind brought to life. As the causes for death he wrote simply _shattered_ and _stabbed_, though he wasn't sure Magenta was entirely dead yet. He didn't care. He wrote it anyways.

When he walked back into the kitchen to find something to eat, he saw that the shattered glass had started to _bleed._ It wasn't possible, couldn't be real, what, who, how, where, what, when, _why?_ He bent to touch it, and it covered his hand like a glove. He tried to wipe it off, but it only spread to his other hand, smeared on his face, stained his shirt. _His shirt. _It was red! The blood made it _red!_ It wasn't _green!_ _His shirt was red. _He smiled genuinely for the first time in a long time. He looked to his dog, dying on the floor, whimpering, begging for death, and to the weeping glass, both oozing that delicious red color that covered the green, the _green_, it _covered the green! _He laughed and it was a little insane but it was just one more thing he didn't care about as he lay down on the floor and rolled in the sticky scarlet substance until his clothes were red from his collar to his socks. There was blood in his hair, but he liked it; maybe his hair was red too! He decided red was his favorite color.

There was a sharp gasp from the doorway and Steve sat up, maniacal eyes meeting the shocked gaze of his now only dog, Blue.

"Steve, no, this isn't right! _This isn't how you find the clues!_ Follow me, Steve! You have to find _the clue!"_

Steve would follow Blue, yes, follow her and kill her and then make everything red. His bed, his other shirts, the yellow pages in his notebook, _it would all be red._

Blue turned to stroll from the kitchen and into the living room to wait for her owner, who had come unscrewed, and Steve took the opportunity to pull the chair leg from Magenta's cold body, walking quickly after the living dog. He was pleased to see that he left red footprints. Red, red, _red,_ so happy it wasn't _green_, or worse, _blue,_ so happy, so thrilled, so _alive! _

He cackled as he followed after Blue, and as the dog turned to face, him, he drove the stick into her throat, rasping,

"_No,_ Blue, no more clues, no more _blue,_ no _clues_, _no Blue, no Blue's Clues, no CLUES!"_ His rambling ended in a shriek as he gazed down at the third- second? It didn't matter- creature, being, thing, he had killed today. Blue's eyes were sad as the life ebbed from them, and the dog choked,

"But, _Steve,_ you have to find the _clue!" _Blue began to seize on the floor as Steve pulled the stick from her neck, and she gargled as she took her last breath. The floor beneath her turned the color of a rose in full bloom, and Steve rushed to his closet in delight, grabbing as much clothing as he could before rushing back into the living room and throwing them down into the increasingly large pool of fiery liquid that spilled from his most faithful companion. He stomped on the clothes as they soaked, sending the life that had formerly coursed through the young dog's veins as far into his belongings as he possibly could. He wanted it to be there forever, wanted it to _stay_, to _remain_, to _fossilize_ if it had to.

He could stop the voices and make things _red,_ his favorite color! His _favorite_, the _best!_ He could stop the voices and paint everything red! _Everything!_ _All of it!_ The voices, _they were red!_

"_Do you like the color red?" _Steve cried, "_Yeah? Me too!" _

He killed everything he could find: the side table drawer, Periwinkle the cat, Tickety Tock the alarm clock, Slippery Soap, Shovel and Pail! _He killed them all_ and painted the house _red!_ The walls, the ceilings, the windows, the floors, his bed, the pictures, his notebook, the _television,_ and _all of it was red!_ It was _fantastic! _Steve had never been so happy in his life!

At last, Steve sat down in his big red chair in his small red house wearing his bright red clothes and sighed a great sigh of content. Everything was perfect now! And the best part?

_Steve hadn't found a single clue._

He laughed and he laughed until his stomach hurt and his eyes ran. _Silly Blue_, he thought. No more clues, no more clues! He was_ free_, his head was _silent!_ No voices, no clues, no talking dogs, _nothing to lose! _As Steve's laughter quieted, a shrill voice broke the air. A song! He heard it- something about- _the mail. _Steve had forgotten! The mailbox! It was _alive._

Steve opened a window and the mailbox stuck itself through, singing songs of letters received. Steve swung the chair leg one last time, and the song was strangled, but still Steve whistled its tune.

He giggled without control as he watched the mailbox fade away, but not before it spat a red stained envelope into his hand. Steve couldn't help but be curious. What could have been so important? Carefully, he broke the letter's seal and extracted something tragic: Blue's final clue.

He turned the paw print to read Blue's last words, and his world crumbled around him as they entered his mind.

There, written sloppily in a crayon he thought was labeled "fire-engine red," were the affectionate words that ended Steve's life.

"_We love you, Steve! Thank you for loving us too." _

All at once Steve was psychotic again, and it took him mere seconds to commit the last murder he would ever commit. Steve fell forward onto the red stained chair leg, piercing his heart and turning his veins to ice. With his last moment of consciousness, Steve looked to watch himself seep scarlet from the seams, just as all his companions had done. He wished he hadn't; he was horrified, _distraught. _

Steve, poor Steve, bled _blue._


End file.
